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suggests that the River Ticino could be a potential route for future recolonization of northern Italy, and supports the need for further conservation actions. As a first step, any reinforcement project would require a new feasibility study and modelling of the release phase, to assess the num- ber of individuals needed to achieve population viability in the long term. The reintroduction project attempted on the River
Ticino faced several of the 18 key problems described by Macdonald (2009). In particular, it was not coordinated on a national level, the genetic origin of reintroduced ani- mals was not considered, the number of individuals released was insufficient and there was no post-release monitoring. Despite this, in the last 2 decades the reintroduction has been considered a success, and a small population of otters persists on the river. Our findings highlight the need for long-term monitoring and viability analysis of reintroduced populations, as even positive trends in the first years post- release do not guarantee success in the longer term (Short, 2016).
Acknowledgements The research was funded by Parco Lombardo della Valle del Ticino. We thank Adriano Bellani, Valentina Parco, Cristina Poma (Parco Lombardo della Valle del Ticino) and Paola Trovò (Parco del Ticino Piemontese) for logistic support; Giorgio Smiroldo, Alessandro Nessi, Elisa A. Bolzoni, Federico Poggio and Danila Rizzioli for help with fieldwork; and the Cambridge Conservation Initiative, Arcadia and Fondation Segré for funding the Endangered Landscape Programme ‘Restoring the Ticino River Basin Landscape. One River—Many Systems—One Landscape’.
Author contributions Research conception: AB, PT; fieldwork: AB, PB; genetic analysis: LG, FV, EG, EC, NM, CM; data analysis: AB, LG, FV, PB; writing: AB, PT, NM.
Conflicts of interest None.
Ethical standards The research was non-intrusive and had the necessary approval and permits from the administration of Parco Lombardo della Valle del Ticino. The research conforms to the stan- dards set out by the British Sociological Association and the Oryx guidelines on ethical standards.
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Oryx, 2022, 56(4), 617–626 © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605321000107
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